


My New Student Wears Red

by QueenRiley



Category: Power Rangers
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 22:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1322194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenRiley/pseuds/QueenRiley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ms. Appleby holds the record for teaching the most Power Rangers. She was grateful when the threat, and the heroes, moved to other cities. She never expected her long-standing boyfriend to be the one to teach them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My New Student Wears Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheSecondBatgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSecondBatgirl/gifts).



Ms. Appleby sighed as she looked at the stack of papers she had yet to grade. Her only consolation was that it was smaller than the stack she’d already attacked with her red pens. It was dry reading, five to seven pages each of an analysis of the theme of isolation in The Scarlet Letter and the application to modern society. The subject was interesting, but explained on a more basic level for her two classes of sophomores. She couldn't wait until they reached Shakespeare’s comedies later in the year.

While she was resigned to a long night of work after a long day of work, she was just grateful she was allowed to teach appropriate material again. It had been many years since she’d had a Power Ranger in her class, and she’d never resented the need to dumb down the material in order to not overtax the heroes, but she’d always felt a bit bad for the rest of the kids in those classes. They were wholly unprepared, having gone through high school alongside Power Rangers. 

None of the teachers were supposed to know they were teaching Power Rangers, of course, but they all knew. It was obvious. The color coordination. The sudden dip in effort at schoolwork. The bruises and stiffness that couldn't be explained away by martial arts. The random disappearances. They were the Power Rangers, and everybody knew it. Everybody kept the secret, but everybody knew it. 

It was why Principal Caplan had insisted she recall her elementary education standards and begin teaching multiple subjects. It was why she consistently had all five to six rangers, for every class, for every year until they graduated or handed over the power. But she was a high school teacher, and her kids deserved to have a real high school education. So she was glad when rangering began moving to other cities. She would always be grateful to her students for what they’d done not only for Angel Grove, but for the world, but it was about time another city, and another set of students, were called to the power.

She took a break from grading, grabbed a hot cup of tea, and sat down with her laptop. An involuntary smile spread across her face when she saw a new email from her favorite person. A message from Lee Burley never failed to cheer her up on a bad day, to make her heart flutter like she was still a teenager. She opened it, awash with a brief rush of excitement.

It was short and to the point but it was all she needed to read to know he was in trouble.

“I have a new student. He wears only red.  
Now we have aliens.  
What do I do?”

She had to help him. Thanksgiving was only a few weeks away. She should take a vacation.

\------------------------------------------

She took a train to Harwood County. It gave her time to think on the long ride there. She’d never actually been to his home, his school, even through his city. And he’d never been to Angel Grove. They took great care to meet up a few times a year at some randomly selected city that had no special meaning to either of them. Spring break. Winter holidays. The rare summer that neither was teaching summer school. It kept things level, fair. Safe.

They’d been doing this for thirty years now and she hoped they would never stop. They’d met in college. They’d kept in touch after graduation, each moving back to the cities in which they were raised. And the romance had blossomed from there. Long distance hadn't always been easy, but to the two of them, it was worth it. They’d made it work, no matter what.

Many of her friends and family had wondered why they’d never married, why she never moved to Harwood County or he to Angel Grove. The truth of the matter was, neither of them were willing to leave the place they called home. Neither were willing to give up the jobs and schools they loved. She could no more ask him to abandon his students than he could of her. So they settled for clandestine meetings throughout the year, for long phone calls and even longer emails. 

He’d been there while she worried and fretted over her rangering students. He’d talked her through study sessions and tutoring sessions for the students who were forced to have a stunted education due to the Power Rangers and the constant threat of alien attack. He’d held her virtual hand while she waited for the world to end and her students to fall in battle. Now it was her turn to repay the favor.

He was waiting for her at the train station. He was nervous, concerned, so she kissed his fears away as the crowd moved around them, eventually dissipating to a few stragglers. He sighed and rested his forehead against hers.

“I think they’re Power Rangers,” he stuttered. She held him tight.

\-------------------------------------------------------

Ever the scientist, he had evidence for his suspicions piled in stacks of papers on his dining room table. They had other plans for this long week, but she knew they needed to get through this first. She needed to ease his worries, calm his fears, and help him come up with a concrete solid plan for how to handle it. He needed the reassurance that he, and his students, could get through this.

She considered herself an expert in the field of guessing who could be a Power Ranger. In her estimate, she’d taught sixteen teenage Power Rangers. Having followed the teams through the years after that, she think she held the record. She held his hand while he sorted the papers, explaining his reasoning, pointing out history and personality and everything else he’d gathered. He made a good case. It was even more solid than her own suspicions had been twenty years prior, with her own groups of students.

Gia, Emma, Noah, Jake, and Troy. They were definitely rangers. They fit type. They fit the pattern. It was uncanny. Troy was really the catalyst. He’d shown up, he’d meshed with the others, and then suddenly the aliens came. The attacks began. Troy had been the one to really confirm it. Lee Burley had Power Rangers in his class.

She lingered on the case file he had for Noah. His prized student, he’d said. Noah understood his eccentricities. Noah was a scientist and, he suspected, a genius determined to hold himself back for his friends. Noah was definitely the Blue Ranger. He tugged at her heart. She saw Billy in Noah, in everything about him. Billy was the epitome of Blue Ranger, to her, and Noah fit the mold he’d left like a glove. She was suddenly terrified for him. Rangering had helped Billy become a more rounded and confident person, and then it had destroyed him. He’d vanished and she didn't know what happened to him. She didn't want the same to happen to this young man, so full of promise. 

They came up with a plan. Less homework. Easier subjects. After school tutelage and extra credit for the other students. Weekly planning meetings with the other teachers. And most importantly, how to accomplish it all without ever letting them know he knew they were rangers. Secrecy was imperative.

\--------------------------------------------

They didn't talk about it again for the rest of the week. They enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving. They reveled in each other, cherishing every brief minute they had of the all too brief vacation. He showed her his hometown, the street he grew up on, the schools he attended and taught at. She got glimpses into his life he’d never shared before. It was like getting to know him all over again.

They said a lengthy and frankly gratuitous goodbye on the train station platform and she watched his already small body shrink as her train sped away. They’d made plans to enjoy winter break together in Angel Grove. After that, who knew. She loved him. He loved her. She was just going to take it one vacation at a time, just as they’d done for the past thirty years, just as they would continue to do until they couldn't do it anymore.


End file.
